You want to sound confident. And you can. You don’t have to live with a small, weak voice that fails to express who you really are. But trying to “make” your voice sound more confident will usually result in fatigue, discomfort and a sense you’re not being authentic. Strategies used by Toronto voice and speech coach, Jay Miller, to help you find a strong voice that is sustainable and genuine include:

The first step involves grounding. When you work with an awareness of solid ground under you, your body is more likely to relax down onto that secure support. As a result, your voice will tend to drop into your body, feeling and sounding deeper, even without changing the pitch. For some people, the effect is surprisingly immediate and very noticeable.

The most important component of your strong voice is breathing. Since the human voice is essentially a wind instrument, it is powered by breath. To find more voice, you need to move more breath. It’s a generous outward flow of breath that will engage your whole voice. Without that power, you have no alternative but to squeeze sound out of your body. As you may know from experience, that doesn’t feel or sound good.

The third element of a confident, authoritative voice is resonance. You don’t need to lower your pitch to have a commanding voice. You need to lower the resonance. You need to cultivate sound vibrations throughout your body, especially in your torso. Speaking from your throat and mouth makes your voice sound small, high and young. Speaking with your whole body makes your voice sound full, deep and strong.

Kristen Linklater, one of the greatest voice coaches of our time, notes that the strength of the voice does not lie in muscular effort. The muscles of the voice are not big and strong. The strength of the voice lies in relaxation, breath and resonance. When you need a strong voice you must find your connection to the ground, move more breath and create more space in your body for sound vibrations.

When you open up and speak with your whole body, rather than pushing harder and forcing your pitch lower, you unleash a voice that is clear, rich, full and very effective. You speak with real power, and your listeners will respond.